Friendly House opens to homeless students

Project Return is taking a step up. The after-school program, which serves homeless students who attend Chapman Elementary in Northwest Portland, recently moved from the school's basement to nearby Friendly House Community Center.

Thanks to a grant from the Portland Children's Levy, the kids without homes have joined the "Friendly Chaps" program that many of their classmates already attended after school. At no charge to their families, these kids now take part in a variety of clubs and activities and receive mentoring and academic support.

Eight-year-old Delia LeClaire , a Project Return student, likes learning new card games and reading during her afternoons at Friendly House. Nine-year-old Merlin Johnson's favorite activities are tae kwon do and soccer. Atosha Greene, 8, and Brittany Martin, 9, like playing games with their friend, Emily Sullivan, 9, something they wouldn't be able to do if Project Return still met separately at Chapman.

"It was a good program," Project Return coordinator Dan Hupala says of the previous school-based model, "but the kids were more isolated. Now they have a chance to play with a more diverse group of kids, a bigger slice of the neighborhood. And they have a lot more activities, like art and sports and field trips."

A Friendly hand Andy Furgeson, who manages Friendly Chaps, commends the parents who worked for years to raise money for Project Return. "They poured their hearts and souls into it, but it wasn't particularly sustainable," he says.

When parents approached the nonprofit community center about taking over Project Return, Furgeson was eager to help make it happen. The community center was already serving about 100 kids from Chapman in Friendly Chaps and managing transitional housing nearby to help homeless people get off the street.

Friendly House didn't receive money in the initial round of grants from the Portland Children's Levy last fall, but Furgeson felt strongly enough about Project Return that he went ahead and launched the program in September with the community center absorbing some of the costs. Street of Eames also pledged $25,000 each for the first two years that Project Return moved to Friendly House.

When some other proposed projects fell through, the Portland Children's Levy was able to give Friendly House $27,500 for the rest of this school year and $55,000 for each of the next two years, mostly covering staff time, for the Project Return kids. Voters overwhelmingly renewed the five-year property tax levy in 2008 that pays for grants to nonprofit organizations that provide early childhood education, after-school care and mentoring programs. It raises $14 million a year, at a cost to taxpayers of about 40 cents for each $1,000 of a property's assessed value, and serves about 16,000 students a year.

"The social benefits of having these kids integrated into the after-school program are huge," Furgeson says. "There's no stigma attached to where they're going after school, especially for these kids whose lives are so different from many of their classmates. To be in a really democratic environment is really empowering and healthy for these kids."

Source of support Project Return still works to identify and support homeless children and those living in transitional housing, providing homework help three afternoons a week. Coordinator Hupala is in close contact with all of the teachers from Chapman, meeting with them on Mondays to get the week's homework assignments and then again on Friday afternoons to check on students' progress. He also attends school meetings for kids who may be struggling with behavior problems.

"We want to make sure we're on the same page with strategies to help kids," he says. In addition, Hupala works on social and emotional development with the students, through friendship clubs and problem-solving groups.

With the funding from the children's levy, Hupala says that next year he will be able to visit the children's families in shelters and transitional housing and connect them with the Safety Net Services that Friendly House offers. Beginning next fall, Project Return families also will receive free memberships to Friendly House, giving them access to all of the recreational and educational programs offered there, including the fitness center and classes for adults.

Parents as well as children are pleased with the changes in the after-school program. Tammie Martin, Brittany's mother, recently moved her family from transitional housing and into an apartment.

"I've always had a good experience with Friendly House," Martin says, adding that she'd love to see the center expand its services further. "It would be great if they had a resource for middle-school kids. Even one week of camp in the summer would make my son's year."